Louisville’s basketball team will miss this year’s NCAA Tournament, even though the team is currently projected to be a 4-seed this March. That is because the university has imposed a one-year postseason ban on the program due to allegations of impropriety in recruiting.

Earlier this year, news came out Louisville was under an investigation from the NCAA due to allegations that the team hired strippers to entertain recruits during visits. You can read more about that here, which features information from a book that was published by one of the escorts who allegedly attended these visits.

Now, Louisville has decided that the best course of action is to hold itself out of the ACC and NCAA Tournaments this year. Here is more information on what happened today, via ESPN:

The school announced the sanctions at a news conference Friday afternoon amid the NCAA’s investigation into an alleged recruiting scandal at Louisville.

University president James R. Ramsey acknowledged that it was “reasonable to conclude violations have occurred in the past.”

“I recognize that this is a significant penalty for our program,” said Ramsay, who was accompanied at the news conference by longtime coach Rick Pitino and athletic director Tom Jurich.

There has been a ton of talk of shady recruiting involving the Louisville basketball program.

Today, some of those rumors gained a little more merit, as a book by a former escort titled Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen claims that Louisville recruiting trips were similar to strip clubs.

Said one of the recruits, who ultimately signed to play elsewhere: “I knew they weren’t college girls. It was crazy. It was like I was in a strip club.”

A book, “Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen,”published this month by self-described former escort Katina Powell, 42, details nearly two dozen stripping and sex parties from 2010 to 2014 inside Billy Minardi Hall, the on-campus dorm for athletes and other students named for Louisville men’s basketball head coach Rick Pitino’s late brother-in-law. Powell, who first spoke to Indianapolis Business Journal Book Publishing, has said that McGee arranged the parties and paid her $10,000 for supplying dancers during the time period.

Powell told Outside the Lines in an extensive interview that McGee also supplied cash for “side deals,” which included sex with some recruits, guardians who accompanied them on visits and some Louisville players.

The former player who said he had sex with a dancer told Outside the Lines that McGee provided him with one-dollar bills to tip dancers and paid for one of the dancers to have sex with the player in a separate room. One of the other former players, who said he attended the parties as a recruit and player, said McGee “would give us the money, just the recruits. A bunch of us were sitting there while they danced. Then the players left, and the recruits chose which one [of the dancers] they wanted.”

McGee is former Cardinals graduate assistant Andre McGee, who five former players and recruits allege put together parties which featured strippers that he paid for.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino responded to these allegations, saying that he has no idea if they’re true and that McGee owes it to everyone to tell the truth.

]]>http://www.slamonline.com/college-hs/college/former-louisville-players-say-school-hired-escorts-recruiting/feed/0SLAMonlineRick Pitino Thinks High Schoolers Should Be Able to Jump Straight to the NBAhttp://www.slamonline.com/nba/rick-pitino-thinks-high-schoolers-should-be-able-to-jump-straight-to-the-nba/
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/rick-pitino-thinks-high-schoolers-should-be-able-to-jump-straight-to-the-nba/#respondSun, 22 Mar 2015 17:19:41 +0000http://www.slamonline.com/?p=353480

Pitino: "I had six young men commit to me out of high school that didn't go to college, that went to the pros...They wanted to go to the NBA."

The one-and-done debate in college basketball has garnered a lot of attention since the NBA instituted its age minimum rules. Some say the rule is hurting both the pro and college games, while others insist that making sure players get one year of college maturity is protecting not only the prospects but their future teams, too.

Some college coaches, even highly successful one-and-done recruiters like John Calipari at Kentucky, have said they’d like to see a two-year minimum. Interestingly, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino says he thinks high schoolers should have the option to go straight to the NBA Draft.

Louisville Cardinals coach Rick Pitino says high school athletes should have the right to enter the NBA draft.

“I’m very much in favor of high school kids going pro,” said Pitino, who will lead Louisville against Northern Iowa in a round-of-32 NCAA tournament matchup Sunday, during his pregame comments Saturday. “I had six young men commit to me out of high school that didn’t go to college, that went to the pros. I’m very much for that because they didn’t want college. They wanted to go to the NBA. And if they go to the [NBA Development League], that’s fine with them. But the six-, seven-month education, online classes second semester. I don’t know what that does for a young person.”

Pitino added: “Now, I’m different than, probably, the coach of Kentucky, who is having so much success with that.”

Kentucky, which is 36-0 after defeating Cincinnati on Saturday, has been led by multiple freshmen throughout John Calipari’s tenure. Calipari is 7-1 against Pitino since he was hired in 2009.

Calipari has previously expressed support for a two-year requirement before players can declare for the draft.

Pitino has rarely relied on freshmen to carry his teams. But he has lost multiple star recruits, including Sebastian Telfair, to the NBA.

There is a little more clarity now as to why Louisville parted ways with senior guard Chris Jones earlier this week. Jones plead not guilty to charges of rape and sodomy today stemming from two separate alleged incidents which occurred on Sunday morning, just hours after Jones returned to the Cardinals after serving a suspension. Here is the completely statement issued by the university regarding Jones’s dismissal:

Former University of Louisville basketball player Chris Jones pleaded not guilty on charges of raping one woman and sodomizing another.

Judge Sheila Collins released Jones on home incarceration in lieu of a $25,000 bond.

The warrant, signed Wednesday by Jefferson District Judge Katie King, says that one of the women was hospitalized Sunday and able to identify Jones as her assailant. One of the women is 19 and the other 20, according to the warrant.

A second warrant says Jones, along with two other people, forced a woman to have intercourse and oral sex. She also identified Jones as a U of L player, according to the warrant. She was taken to University of Louisville Hospital, where she was treated.

Those defendants have been arrested and are to be arraigned Thursday morning in Jefferson County Jail. Jessie Halladay, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office , identified them as Tyvon Walker and Jalen Tilford. Walker was charged with one count of rape and Tilford with one count of rape and one count of sodomy.

Chris Jones’ time at Louisville came to an end over the weekend. After returning from a suspension and playing in one game, Cardinals coach Rick Pitino announced that Jones had been dismissed from the program. In his final game with the squad, Jones—who was third on the team in scoring and first in assists and steals—played 36 minutes and scored 17 points in Louisville’s 55-53 win over the Miami Hurricanes. There’s no word what led to the decision to dismiss Jones, but a source told The Courier-Journal that he “messed up” and will seek help for “issues stemming from an ongoing battle with ADHD.”

From The Courier-Journal:

A day after his first game back from a suspension, Chris Jones has been dismissed from the University of Louisville basketball team.

The school made the announcement on Sunday afternoon and said there would be no further comment on the matter. Jones did not return multiple messages seeking comment, though a source close to the point guard said Jones was “devastated” by the decision.

Spokespeople for both U of L police and the Louisville Metro Police said Sunday that there had been no reported incidents involving Jones in recent weeks.

“He’s finished,” coach Rick Pitino said when reached by The Courier-Journal on Sunday afternoon. “There won’t be any comment.”

U of L takes on Georgia Tech at 7 p.m. Monday night in Atlanta, and freshman Quentin Snider is expected to start in Jones’s place.

The news comes five days after U of L announced an indefinite suspension of Jones just before the Cardinals’ trip to Syracuse. He missed that game, which Syracuse won, but Pitino indicated that he wasn’t sure if Jones would return after the one-game suspension or remain suspended.

“We missed him a lot but, you know, it’s his selfishness that hurt the team,” Pitino said Wednesday. “It’s all cleared up – he could play the next game if he does what the assistant coaches tell him to do. If he doesn’t, he sits again. And I don’t care if he sits the whole season, to tell you the truth. I (couldn’t) care less. Because if he doesn’t do the right things and act like a Louisville man, he can move on and try to go to Belgium somewhere.”

This is a strange change to make at this point in the college basketball season. Louisville coach Rick Pitino told reporters on Tuesday that he has decided to strip junior forward Montrezl Harrell of his captaincy. Pitino gave no explanation for why he decided to make the move, but he did say that he still views Harrell—who is averaging 14.9 points, 9.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.1 blocks and 0.9 steals per game this season—as a team leader.

From The Courier-Journal:

Louisville coach Rick Pitino on Tuesday confirmed a report that All-American forward Montrezl Harrell is no longer a U of L team captain, but he also sought to play down the significance of the change.

“Absolutely no big deal,” he said in a message to The Courier-Journal. “Totally nothing. He is still the leader of our team.”

ESPN 680, the local Louisville affiliate for ESPN Radio, broke the news on Sunday afternoon after Harrell reportedly told radio host Jason Anderson of the decision. No reason was given for the change.

Harrell, a 6-foot-8 junior from North Carolina, was made a team captain when he decided to skip the 2014 NBA draft and return to school for his junior year.

Manhattan head coach Steve Masiello—who led the Jaspers to the NCAA Tournament and nearly took down Louisville—signed a contract with South Florida to become the next head coach of the Bulls.

However, one thing stood between Masiello and Tampa: a background check. During the background check, it was revealed that Masiello never received his degree from Kentucky, where he was a walk-on with the school’s basketball team.

The UK Office of Public Relations confirmed to The Tampa Tribune that Masiello was a student there from 1996 to 2000. He was a walk-on basketball player for Coach Rick Pitino in his first year, then Coach Tubby Smith for his final three seasons. According to UK records, Masiello never received a degree.

In Masiello’s official biography with Manhattan College, he is described as “a 2000 graduate of the University of Kentucky with a degree in communications.”

Pitino told ESPN that he was “shocked” and “had no idea” Masiello never graduated from Kentucky. “When I left (UK for the NBA), he was on track to graduate,” Pitino said.

Per USF policy, all full-time coaching hires at the university must have at least a bachelors degree. There is no word on whether or not Masiello will return to Manhattan, but according to Manhattan’s student newspaper The Quadrangle, at least one Jasper player would welcome Masiello back.

In an appearance on ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” earlier today, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino shared his opinion on social media.

Long story short, he’s not a fan.

Pitino has banned his players from tweeting and has said that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t let them use other forms of social media, either. He also isn’t a fan of Instagram, calling it “a total waste of time.”

“Every hour, it’s like taking a little bit of poison,” Pitino said during an appearance Wednesday on ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike.” “It poisons their minds.

“I think technology is a great thing in many instances, and I think it’s poison in others, and for people in sports especially.”

He said his players concede they use social media at least four hours a day.

“I’m trying to get our players to read more, pay attention to important things,” the Hall of Fame coach said.

“We as parents and teachers, we want our children, we want our players to communicate, to articulate a message, to get in front of a human resources person and articulate their passion for wanting a job,” he said. “We’re losing our abilities to communicate, especially young people today.”

Pitino may be onto something: his Cardinals are 22-4 on the season and are the 11th ranked team in America.

Embattled Louisville forward Chane Behanan has been dismissed from the team for an undisclosed violation of university policy.

The announcement was made earlier today by Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino, who said that he learned last night that Behanan was going to be dismissed from the team. There is no word of what Behanan will do next, but he could transfer schools—which Pitino recommends he does—or attempt to join the professional ranks.

Behanan began this season suspended for an undisclosed violation of university policy—there is no word on whether or not his dismissal has anything to do with the original rules violation—and was reinstated after the team’s first game. The junior was also at the center of a controversy where his 2012 Final Four ring appeared on an auction site, but the NCAA cleared him of any wrongdoing.

From The Courier-Journal:

“I want to apologize for letting down my family, teammates, coaches, (athletic director) Tom Jurich, this university and the Louisville fans,” Behanan, a junior power forward, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately (2013) is ending on a bad note for us and me personally as Chane Behanan has been dismissed by the university from our basketball team,” Pitino said. “We lost a really terrific young man in many respects. Between the lines, he gave great effort and was a great teammate, a wonderful young guy to be around. Away from the lines, he did not do the right things over and over and over.”

Today in “why we love basketball”: Louisville guard Kevin Ware made his return to the hardwood last night for the first time since his gruesome leg injury in the Cardinals’ Elite Eight matchup against Duke.

The junior guard from the Bronx didn’t waste any time getting back into the swing of things, as he drilled the first shot that he attempted and earned a standing ovation from the crowd in the KFC Yum! Center.

Ware didn’t enter the game until the 13:49 mark of the second half, but he played 10 minutes in the team’s 90-61 beatdown of NAIA University of Pikeville, scoring 6 points and grabbing 4 rebounds.

After bringing in the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, John Calipari and his Kentucky Wildcats are the No. 1 team in the country in the inaugural Associated Press poll.

Kentucky is one of three teams to receive first place votes to kick off the season. The Wildcats received 27, the Michigan State Spartans received 22, the defending champion Louisville Cardinals received 14, and the Duke Blue Devils received two.

Kentucky narrowly got the top spot over Michigan State. The Wildcats accumulated 1,546 ponts in the poll, while Tom Izzo’s Spartans received 1,543. The two teams will face off on Nov. 12 at the Champions Classic in Chicago.

That isn’t the only matchup between top three teams in the preseason poll: Kentucky and Louisville will play their annual game on Dec. 28 in Lexington.

This is the first time that Kentucky was named the preseason #1 since 1995-96. That season, Rick Pitino led the Wildcats to a 34-2 record and a national title.

“It’s a nice honor, but it’s way too early to figure out who’s the best team in the country,” Calipari said. “We may be very talented, but I can’t imagine us being the best team in the country at this point.”

At the annual Cards luncheon in downtown Louisville, Cardinals coach Rick Pitino told reporters he believes the team is one Final Four away from becoming the next great team in college hoops, saying that Louisville is “one year away from a potential mini-dynasty.”

The Cardinals have made it to the Tournament’s final weekend in each of the last two years, as well as the last seven NCAA tournaments. Louisville also won the last two Big East tournament championships.

Pitino said his returning players are hungry — but more importantly humble — in terms of reaching a third straight national semifinal.

“These guys are totally committed — totally bought into trying to do it again,” Pitino said. “Now does it take a little luck? Sure it does. But it takes more than luck. It takes talent, it takes focus, and it takes humility. These guys have it.”

Louisville’s road to a second consecutive title will be difficult, as the team will need to replace Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng, and are without the services of junior forward Chane Behanan indefinitely.

Louisville’s road to repeating just became a little more difficult, as junior forward Chane Behanan has been suspended indefinitely for a violation of university policy.

Behanan is the Cardinals’ leading rebounder and second leading scorer among all returning players. The 6-6 Cincinnati native put up 9.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last year for the Cardinals, including a 15-point, 12-rebound performance in the National Championship game against Michigan.

But due to an unknown violation, coach Rick Pitino told reporters that Behanan will miss at least November.

“It could be over as early as December, but knowing him, we gave him a list of rules to follow and he’s already broken one of them, so I think it’s possible [he’ll be back], but not probable,” Pitino said.

Behanan has faced discipline before. Last season, he was suspended for the Cardinals’ preseason games and did not start the season-opening win against Manhattan. Pitino also banned the charismatic Behanan from talking to the media for almost the entire non-conference schedule. Pitino said at the time of the 2012 suspension that Behanan’s immaturity led to his punishment.

With Behanan’s suspension, the Cardinals will enter this season without three of its top-four scorers and its top-two rebounders from last season.

On Monday, the 2013 NCAA Champion Louisville Cardinals received their championship rings.

Russ Smith wasn’t there.

On Tuesday, the Cardinals will visit President Obama and the White House to celebrate their newest banner.

Russ Smith won’t be there, either.

Instead, Smith, who led the Louisville title team in scoring during the ’12-13 regular season, is with a team of collegiate players from across the nation in Estonia. He’ll be joining DIII Lycoming head coach Guy Rancourt and 11 other college players on the East Coast All-Stars to rep the red, white and blue in this week’s Four Nations Cup.

“Man, I don’t even know. I don’t even know what to expect to be for real,” Smith said of this upcoming FIBA challenge. “But what I can say is that we’re going to play hard and try our best to win some games.”

For Smith, the ECA’s two-day training camp at Fordham University last weekend was his first organized game action outside of a Dyckman run on Saturday. Outside of training individually, the guard with a “Russdiculous” moniker, is still riding Louisville’s title wave.

“It’s been pretty crazy in the state,” Smith says of Kentucky’s post-Championship reaction. “Then I came home for a bit, spent some time home here [in New York]. I got a lot of love here as well, so it’s been really good.”

He has all the reason to step back and embrace his success. Smith’s career could arguably be considered one of the most decorated of all active players’ in the nation. You could say his trophy case is overflowing with hardware.

Since joining Rick Pitino in Louisville in 2010, Smith has played integral roles on Cardinals teams that have won a National Championship, made two Final Four appearances and won the Big East Tournament twice while earning a 90-25 record.

Yet despite all of his success, Smith, a soft-spoken and down-to-earth kid, is often considered a knucklehead and a detriment on the court.

“I don’t really mind it. Sometimes it brings a negative perception,” Smith says of his nickname and wavering on-court perception. “But I just play basketball and I’m a winner. At the end of the day there are guys with names like Mr. Fundamental, but they don’t have two-straight Final Fours and a National Championship. I have rings, man.”

After winning said ring and averaging 18.7 points per game last season, Smith was considered a shoo-in to enter his name into the 2013 NBA Draft. Yet the enigmatic Cardinal decided to return for his senior season.

“After last season, with the year I had, one would think I should be in the League or I should be a first-round pick,” Smith says. “But I don’t get into that. This is an opportunity for me to get better, fix some of those wrinkles in my game that need to be ironed,” he explains, both of returning to school and joining the ECAs. “I’m not here to get to the NBA or prove something to anybody. I know I can play at the next level. This is about getting the wrinkles out of my game.”

In order to smooth out some of the rough edges of his game, Smith is doing things like bypassing the nation’s capital for a small town in Europe. He’s looking forward to using the opportunity to improve his decision making, clock and time management and shot selection—which he calls his “biggest hurdle.”

“Just getting better fundamentally,” Smith says of his goal to improve. “With the reputation of overseas guys, I have to play really solid and I can’t make any mistakes. Offensively and defensively, we just gotta take it one possession at a time. I wanna get guys involved and get guys the ball and just become a smarter player.”

This trip to Estonia will also allow his to receive valuable minutes running the team as the starting point guard, a role Peyton Siva held under Pitino for the last four years. That could be a task Smith is asked to handle next fall.

“I feel like it’s [going to be a challenge] running a team,” Smith says of his new position for the Cup. “It’s not so much playing the one but running the team and making the right decisions the whole game. I think that’s the biggest challenge.”

The electric scorer also said that he doesn’t know exactly what position he’ll play for Pitino next season, but did say that he and his coach have been in close contact about this ensuing campaign—a season that will carry enormous expectations on campus.

The defending champs will be returning three starters in Smith, Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshear. The Cards will also have super role players Luke Hancock and Montrezl Harrell as well. Add in a typical stellar recruiting class and you have team ready to wreak havoc during the inaugural American Athletic Conference season.

“We have a very good chance to repeat, a very good chance to,” Smith says of his team. “But it’s not talent or even depth that gets you into the Final Four. It’s how well you are as a team mentally and how well prepared you are from a scouting standpoint. Coach P is great at preparation, man. There’s some ridiculous stat that he’s like undefeated in Sweet 16s or has just one loss in the Elite Eight. It’s ridiculous. Coach P prepares really well.”

“I think he’s done,” Smith laughed. “I don’t think he wants to make any more deals with us.”

After a likely productive week in Estonia, Smith may find himself laughing yet again. Following a week of fine-tuning his game, he’ll likely be the one chuckling at those who ridiculed him for ditching the festivities in DC. And when the basketball world drops everything to tune in during March, Smith will be probably be there, too.

After making a promise to his team earlier this season—that if the squad won the National Championship, he would get a tattoo—Louisville coach Rick Pitino followed through this week, getting some fresh ink on his back to commemorate a memorable campaign. You can peep photos of the tattoo above, and here are more details, via ESPN.com: “On Feb. 9, after a demoralizing loss to Notre Dame that required five overtimes to settle, Pitino told his Cardinals that they’d win out, win the Big East title and get to the Final Four. ‘I then told them they have to stop with all these tattoos,’ Pitino said. That’s when the players fired back at Pitino. If the Cardinals could win the national title, would the coach get his own tattoo? The rest is history. Louisville rallied to defeat Michigan 82-76 in the championship game on April 8, with Pitino becoming the first coach to win national crowns at two schools, and he revealed his tattoo promise in a postgame interview. ‘Our biggest motivation,’ senior guard Peyton Siva said after the victory, ‘was to get coach a tattoo.’ As for Pitino, he said he wasn’t fearing the pain. ‘It wasn’t even close to the pain I had with kidney stones,’ Pitino said. ‘That was like an ‘A’ in pain, this was a ‘C.'”

As we’d expected, Gary Payton and Bernard King were elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame today. The Glove and ‘Nard lead the 2013 class. Per NBA.com: “Former scoring star Bernard King and coaches Jerry Tarkanian and Guy Lewis have been elected to the Hall of Fame after long waits as the Springfield, Mass., basketball museum continued its stated mission of new chances for candidates that have been overlooked in the past. Those three, along with expected inductee Gary Payton and active coach Rick Pitino, headline the Class of 2013. Maurice Cheeks, Tim Hardaway, Spencer Haywood, Tom Heinsohn (as a coach, after previously making it as a player) and Mitch Richmond failed to receive at least 18 votes from 24 anonymous panelists from around the NBA and college game that decide the finalists from the North American committee. In the other results announced Monday in Atlanta as part of the Final Four, North Carolina women’s coach Sylvia Hatchell and former star guard Dawn Staley were elected via the Women’s committee. They were the only finalists. The just-announced inductees were be enshrined Sept. 8 in Springfield with the winners announced in February from other categories: Roger Brown (ABA), Edwin B. Henderson (Early African American Pioneers), Oscar Schmidt (International), Richard Guerin (Veterans) and Russ Granik (Contributor).”

According to the NY Daily News, the New York Knicks have begun to work on a long-term deal for head coach Mike Woodson. Looks like Rick Pitino and Phil Jackson aren’t walking through that door, Knicks fans: “Mike Woodson is moving closer to having the interim tag removed from his job title. The Knicks have initiated talks that would keep Woodson as the team’s head coach for the foreseeable future, the Daily News has learned. The talks are only in the preliminary stages but it is clear that Madison Square Garden management is convinced Woodson is the right man for the job and will not pursue either Phil Jackson or Kentucky head coach John Calipari. Woodson replaced Mike D’Antoni in March and emerged as the leading candidate to keep the job when the Knicks finished out the regular season 18-6. […]Coincidentally, a playoff win on Sunday — the Knicks’ first since April 29th 2001 — wasn’t necessarily critical for Woodson’s job security because the club approached him about a possible extension last week. In fact, Garden chairman James Dolan met with Woodson in the head coach’s office for 45 minutes prior to the Knicks’ emotional Game 4 victory over the Heat. When asked on Monday if he believed that winning Game 4 helped his candidacy, Woodson said: ‘It’s not about Mike Woodson and my contract and where I go from here.’ Woodson has the support of several key players, most notably Carmelo Anthony. He also has a strong ally in GM Glen Grunwald, his former college teammate at Indiana. Both Grunwald and Woodson are long-time friends of former Knicks president Isiah Thomas, who serves as a de facto adviser to Dolan. Grunwald and Thomas had to convince Dolan that Woodson would be a good hire after the front office encouraged — some would say demanded — that D’Antoni add an experienced assistant coach after the Knicks were swept by the Celtics in last year’s first round. It wasn’t Woodson’s coaching acumen that concerned Dolan. It was his relationship with Larry Brown.”

Louisville might not have been better than Florida all game, but it played its best when it mattered. A 23-8 run to close the game gave the Cardinals a 72-68 win and a trip to the Final Four.

Everything seemed to be pointing towards a Florida victory over the first 30 minutes. The Gators led by 11 in the second half and even when Louisville was making its run, the Cardinals lost their point guard Peyton Siva to fouls with just under four minutes remaining.

But Louisville shrugged it off and took its first lead of the half, 69-68, on a Chane Behanan jumper with 1:12 remaining in the game. After two free throws by Russ Smith on Louisville’s next possession, Florida had one more shot to tie but both Bradley Beal and Kenny Boynton could not connect from beyond the arc. The Gators didn’t make one three-pointer in the second half after making eight in the first half.

Despite struggling during the regular season, head coach Rick Pitino never lost faith in his team.

From the Courier-Journal:

“What happens is, you can’t lose confidence,” Pitino said. “I kept telling the guys, ‘We’re going to the Final Four. Win the Big East tournament, you’re going to the Final Four,’ and they did.”

This is Louisville’s ninth trip to the Final Four and its first since 2005. A potential matchup with in-state rival Kentucky could meet the Cardinals in New Orleans. Pitino won his only title of his career with the Wildcats in 1996.

Reggie, Bernard and Don are just three of the finalists for this year’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class. Other notable names include Rick Pitino, Maurice Cheeks, Bill Fitch, and even Nike chairman Phil Knight. Per the AP: “Five-time NBA All-Star Reggie Miller and Don Nelson, the league’s winningest coach, headline the list of 12 finalists for the 2012 class for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Miller was joined Friday by three other first-time finalists — five-time NCAA Final Four coach Rick Pitino, former NBA coach Bill Fitch and two-time Olympic gold medalist Katrina McClain. Previous finalists on the ballot again are Nelson, Maurice Cheeks, Bernard King, Dick Motta, Hank Nichols, Ralph Sampson, Jamaal Wilkes and the All-American Red Heads, known as the female version of the Harlem Globetrotters and the first women’s professional basketball team. The class of 2012 will be announced April 2 at NCAA Final Four in New Orleans. A finalist needs 18 of 24 votes from the Honors Committee for election.”

Pitino, who previously coached at Boston University, Providence and Kentucky, while making stops in the NBA with the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, signed a four-year contract extension with Louisville in August. As the Cardinals prepare for Wednesday’s Big East opener against Georgetown, the only coach to lead three teams to the Final Four was talking about the end of his career.

From USA Today:

“When you’re 59, you’re realistic that you don’t have a whole lot of years left,” Pitino said at a news conference before the No. 4 Cardinals play Georgetown on Wednesday. “My contract’s going to run out in 2017. I’m not coaching any more after that.”

Pitino won a national title with Kentucky in 1996. This season he became the 70th coach in NCAA history to reach 600 wins.

Ron Mercer was widely considered a Top 5 prospect in the nation in 1995, a class that included the likes of KG, Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, and Stephon Marbury. He was twice named Mr. Basketball in the state of Tennessee and played under Rick Pitino at UK where he won a NCAA Championship his freshman year. Mercer was drafted 6th overall in the ’97 draft by the Boston celtics where he was reunited with Coach Pitino. He averaged 15 pts/game his Rookie season and was named to the All-Rooke 1st team. After two solid seasons in Beantown, Mercer was traded to the Nuggets then the Magic before signing with Bulls as a free agent. Despite his high scoring output in Chicago, he was traded to the Pacers during the ’01-02 season where he was used primarily as a role player. He never really got going after that and hasn’t played in the league since he was waived by the Nets in 2005. Mercer’s best season was in ’00-01 (his first with the Bulls) when he averaged 19.7 pts, 3.9 rbs, and 3.3 asts. Shout out to MISEK for the Mix.

The Courier-Journal brings us a pretty neat clip of a story former Boston Celtics coach Rick Pitino told about his unfulfilled wish to draft Dirk Nowitzki back in the 1998 NBA Draft (the C’s consolation prize was Paul Pierce.) From the Herald: “It’s fairly well documented that Rick Pitino and the Celtics were hot on drafting Dirk Nowitzki in the 1998 NBA Draft. The German-born Nowitzki was well known in his country, but had only been exposed in the States while playing in the Nike Hoop Summit the summer of the draft. Just the same, Pitino thought he had him wrapped up at No. 10, and that not too many other teams knew about him. Of course, he was wrong. The Milwaukee Bucks drafted him No. 9, right before the Celtics, and immediately traded him to the Mavericks, where he has blossomed into one of the best players in the NBA. The Celtics landed on their feet, drafting Paul Pierce with the No. 10 pick. Pitino recently talked about missing out on Nowitzki during a press conference at Louisville. And the tale he tells is an interesting one.”

The Louisville coach believes that a large number of NBA hoopers (to say nothing of guys coming out of college) will be strapped for cash heading into next season’s possible lockout, and will need to earn a paycheck somewhere, anywhere. ZagsBlog reports: “I do think there are a lot of guys in the NBA who have made a lot of money, but have not invested wisely,’ Pitino said Wednesday by phone. ‘So if they think the lockout’s long, they’re going to try to get Greece, Italy and Spain as quickly as they can.’ Pitino said he advised Louisville junior power forward Terrence Jennings, a borderline second-round NBA Draft pick, to take the first European deal he is offered. ‘I gave him all the information and said to him, ‘You’re probably, if you have good workouts, going to get drafted in the second round,’ Pitino said. ‘That being said, you must understand that the first deal that comes across from Europe, you need to take because a lot of these pro guys are very good and they’re going to need money and they’re going to have to go to Europe because of the lockout.’ The current collective bargaining agreement expires June 30, and if the two sides cannot agree on a new deal the NBA could be headed for an extended lockout. Pitino cited a Toronto Star story from within the past few years that said 65 percent of first-round NBA Draft picks within the past 15 years are currently bankrupt. ‘There aren’t a lot of guys in the NBA that have invested wisely and saved their money,’ Pitino said. That, in turn, will make competition overseas tougher for guys like the 6-foot-10 Jennings. ‘The competition for Europe and Asia is going to be very keen with this lockout,’ Pitino said, adding he told Jennings: ‘Don’t hold out. There’s no summer league. Samardo [Samuels] got very lucky last year because LeBron broke up the Cleveland Cavaliers. So you’ve got to take what’s available.'”

Louisville announced today that Hargrave Military Academy coach Kevin Keatts will be joining Rick Pitino on the bench as an assistant. Keatts becomes the third assistant to be hired in the last few days after former assistants Steve Masiello left for a head coaching position at Manhattan College, Tim Fuller joined the Missouri coaching staff, and Ralph Willard announced he will not be returning next season. Keatts joins newly hired assistants Richard Pitino, Rick’s son, who spent last season as an assistant under Florida’s Billy Donovan, and Wyking Jones, who was recently an assistant at New Mexico. At Hargrave, Keatts won two national prep championships in eight seasons.

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Manhattan College has named Steve Masiello its 23rd head men’s basketball coach in program history as made official on Monday. A meet and greet to announce the Jaspers’ newest basketball coach is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13 at 3:30 p.m. in Draddy Gymnasium.

Masiello arrives back in his native New York after spending the last six years in the BIG EAST as an assistant at Louisville under head coach Rick Pitino. Over his six-year tenure at Louisville, Masiello helped lead the Cards’ to a 148-61 (.708) overall record, six straight 20-win seasons and four NCAA Tournament appearances, advancing to the Elite Eight twice (2008 & 2009). Masiello played a vital role in building Louisville’s 2009 BIG EAST Championship team which won 31 games, including a program record 16 in conference, and entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed.

“I am honored and humbled to be the next coach of Manhattan College,” stated Masiello. “I am eager to lead the Jaspers back to prominence as being a premier program in the conference, and re-establishing our rich tradition and winning history.”

One of the nation’s most renowned recruiters, Masiello effectively directed the Cards’ recruiting efforts by signing four Top-20 recruiting classes, which included four McDonald’s All-Americans over his time in Louisville. The Cards’ 2008 recruiting class garnered a No. 4 national ranking as it featured 2008 USA Today High School National Player of the Year and future NBA player Samardo Samuels.

Masiello was named one of the nation’s Top-25 collegiate assistant coaches according to FoxSports.com (2010) & Rivals.com (2007). He managed the Cards’ game preparation and scouting responsibilities for his last three years with the program as Louisville amassed a 76-29 (.724) overall record, including a 39-15 (.722) mark in the BIG EAST during this stretch. “Steve has been a tireless worker in his six years at Louisville,” explained Cards’ head coach Rick Pitino. “I’ve seen him grow from a ball boy with the New York Knicks to an outstanding teacher of the game. I’m real proud of his efforts and I know he will do an unbelievable job turning Manhattan back into a winner.”

Masiello returns to Riverdale where he helped lead Manhattan to three postseason appearances in four years (2001-2005) as an assistant coach, which included two trips to the NCAA Tournament (2003 & 2004) and one to the NIT (2002). Under his tutelage, the Jaspers posted an 83-36 (.697) overall record and won the 2003 & 2004 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships. Masiello was a key contributor on the Jaspers’ coaching staff which helped lead Manhattan to its third NCAA Tournament victory in program history in 2004 defeating Florida in the First Round.

“Steve is a winner who has had success at each of his previous coaching stops and during his collegiate playing career at Kentucky,” said Manhattan College Director of Athletics Bob Byrnes. “We are extremely fortunate to hire a well-respected, highly experienced coach who is familiar with building a winning tradition here at Manhattan College from his days as an assistant.”

Prior to Manhattan, Masiello served as the administrative assistant at Tulane under head coach Shawn Finney for one year (2000-2001). A 2000 graduate of the University of Kentucky with a degree in communications, Masiello was a four-year member of the Wildcats’ basketball team playing under head coaches Rick Pitino for one season (1996-97) and Tubby Smith for his final three years (1997-2000). During his playing career, Kentucky went to the Final Four twice (1997 & 1998), advancing to the National Championship game both times and winning the title in 1998. Masiello was named the Wildcats’ co-captain his senior year.

Masiello hails from White Plains, N.Y., and attended Archbishop Stepinac High School. He completed his final two years at the Harvey School in Katonah, N.Y. where he helped the basketball program win the New England Prep School Athletic Association Championship. Masiello also served as a ball boy for the New York Knicks during his youth.

With Coach K having the Team USA job on lockdown right now, any coach interested in coaching in the Olympics will have to set his sights elsewhere. Louisville Head Coach Rick Pitino has his set on Puerto Rico.

Although Pitino has not officially accepted the position, the two sides are close. Puerto Rico missed qualifying for the 2008 Olympics and under Pitino would need to do well in this summer’s qualifying tournament in Argentina to even make the 2012 Olympics.

While nothing is official yet, Puerto Rican natives Jose Juan Barea and Carlos Arroyo plan to meet with Pitino on Sunday before he flies down to Puerto Rico on Monday to formally accept an offer.

Barea said Puerto Rico typically prefers to stick with its own, but the failure to qualify for the 2008 Olympics, plus last summer’s disappointing first-round ousting at the World Championships in Turkey, prompted Puerto Rican Basketball Federation president Carlos J. Beltran to contact Pitino.

“He’ll bring defense and discipline and I think guys will listen to him more than they listen to the guys in Puerto Rico just because he’s Rick Pitino,” Barea said. “I think that will help.”

Having Pitino and Mike Krzyzewski potentially coach against each other in the Olympics will be one of the biggest storylines in 2012. There could be some magic in store. Remember, these were the two coaches when Christian Laettner hit that memorable shot in 1992.

Antoine Walker’s been in the news a lot this year; too bad none of it had anything to do with his game. Today, however, it does.

Walker, a former All-Star, is set to attempt to work his way back into the NBA. According to the AP: “Louisville coach Rick Pitino says Walker will work out with several Cardinals over the next few weeks. Walker hasn’t played in the NBA since 2008 and has suffered legal and financial woes since stepping away from the game…Pitino, who coached Walker at Kentucky in the 1990s, said he also hopes Walker will talk to his players about the temptations that come with life as a professional.”

One of the world’s greatest sports spectacles tipped off on Thursday. With that in mind, we take a look back at one of the defining games in NCAA basketball history. Duke, Kentucky and a game-winner for the ages. If you missed it a few years ago when it ran in the mag, be sure to peep it now.

by Michael Bradley

If you have to attack something big, it helps to break it down into smaller challenges. Many of them. Of course, to those of us crammed into Philadelphia’s Spectrum that fateful late afternoon in March of ’92, it could not be reduced to a pile of rubble. The job was too big.

That’s how it is when you have no control. You can’t see a solution, only the large, seemingly insurmountable problem. Sitting behind the Duke basket, looking across the arena to a destination which seemed so far away and so small, I had thoughts of nothing but desperation. What do you want? There were 2.1 seconds left in the greatest game I’d ever seen, and even if it had ended in a 103-102 Kentucky win, it would have been one of those I-was-there-and-you-weren’t moments.

To my left, the Kentucky fans were in full throat, convinced Sean Woods’ running banker in the lane had finally done the job. It was easy to root for them, despite the school’s history. These weren’t the Wildcats of cranky Adolph Rupp or corporate wonk Joe B. Hall. They were “The Unforgettables,” a team made up of Bluegrass State prep heroes whose dreams of playing for the Blue-and-White were realized largely because the NCAA’s probationary hammer had come down hard on the program in the wake of Eddie Sutton’s fast-and-loose days. Guys like John Pelphrey and Richie Farmer and Deron Feldhaus were role-playing types who had been forged into heroes by necessity and Rick Pitino. Woods was there, too. And so was Jamal Mashburn, a reminder that Kentucky wouldn’t always be so cuddly. The talent spigot had been turned on again.

“The so-called ‘All-Americans’ had transferred,” says Pitino, who had come to the program’s rescue two years before. “What was left behind were people nobody wanted. There was a group of three Kentucky kids who bled the colors of the university. They had dreamed about playing there since they were born.”

Everybody else in the gym was rooting for Duke, or at least it seemed that way. That’s what happens when you’re the defending National Champs and represent a prestigious private school. That goes a long way in Philly, where the Main Line is loaded with preppy, well-heeled fans who both attended and paid their children’s tuition at such schools. But even they, who were so used to getting their way, couldn’t see a solution. The 1992 NCAA East Regional championship was Kentucky’s. Those 2.1 seconds were just for dramatic effect. After all, the job was too big.

“We’re going to win.”

That’s how it started. Well, actually it started with Woods, a fearless point guard who had driven around Duke assist machine Bobby Hurley and banked in a 13-footer over the fingernails of Blue Devil center Christian Laettner to give UK a one-point lead with 2.1 left in overtime. “I wanted to get the ball up there, so that if I missed it, there would be a chance for somebody to tip it in,” Woods says. “I wanted it to hit the back of the rim, but I gave it some extra oomph, because of the excitement. It hit the square in the middle.”

Woods’ shot had seemingly capped a wild overtime ride that featured two huge baskets by Pelphrey and an old-fashioned three-point play by Mashburn. Duke had countered with a Hurley triple and six points by Laettner (four free throws and a bucket). Each punch and resulting counterpunch had brought the assembled throng to a heightened state of frenzy.

It had been that way the entire game, really. Duke led throughout much of the first half, but there was no impression the Blue Devils would run away with the thing. On the contrary, there was a sense of concern, since the game was being played at UK’s frenetic pace. “Kentucky was a run-and-gun team that scored so many points,” Laettner says. “I didn’t know if we could hang with them. That was the only way to beat us that year. You couldn’t slow it down on us or do anything else.”

Laettner’s right. Duke had been transformed from the lovable underdog that had slain the mighty UNLV bandits in the ’91 national semifinal into a leviathan, losing but twice (to North Carolina and Wake Forest). Laettner and Hurley were the best players at their positions in the land, and Grant Hill wasn’t exactly shabby at the forward spot. Thomas Hill, Brian Davis and Antonio Lang made significant contributions to one of the best teams of the last 25 years. Kentucky’s players felt confident, but they knew what they were getting into. “Make no mistake whatsoever,” Pelphrey says. “We understood who they were. We understood their personnel. And we knew these guys would play for a long time after we hung them up.”

Duke led 50-45 at the half and had a 79-69 advantage when the real fun began. “We had pressed them throughout, and we thought they would eventually get tired, and we would make a run,” Pelphrey says. Sure enough, Kentucky fought back. And at one point, things almost got out of control. After UK freshman Aminu Timberlake fouled Laettner, Timberlake hit the deck. Laettner, not too happy with some of the physical play going on, stomped on Timberlake’s chest, drawing a technical and some outrage. “I was losing my balance, and I put my foot on his chest,” Laettner says. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him, and that’s why the ref only gave me one technical foul.” While Kentucky fans screamed for Laettner’s head, the game rollicked toward its conclusion.

After regulation, it was 93-93. Kentucky led three times in OT before Woods’ shot. Duke was in front twice. And then it was 103-102. The Devils called timeout, and coach Mike Krzyzewski made his prediction. “We’re going to win.”

“I think we believed it, because Coach has a commanding presence, and whatever he said in that huddle, we came out of it feeling like we had a chance to win,” Grant Hill says.

The Pass

After assuring his team that it would win, Krzyzewski had a question for Grant Hill: “Can you make a good pass?” Hill said yes, and that part of the problem was solved. “That was a positive,” Laettner recalls simply.

In the Kentucky huddle, there were no questions about whether the game could be won. In most of the players’ minds, it had already been decided. Pelphrey thought about how probation had stripped UK of the SEC title it had won the previous year. About how the people of Kentucky had supported the team through Pitino’s difficult first year, when the Wildcats finished 14-14. “I thought we would have a ring [as East Region champs] that no one could take away from us,” Pelphrey says. Woods, meanwhile, felt some vindication, since he had struggled earlier in the year in some late-game situations. He was also impatient. “I wanted to hurry up and get the dad-gum game over,” he says. “People didn’t realize what we had gone through for the past two or three years. There was an urgency to get some satisfaction.”

Pitino prepared his team for the first part of the play with a decision that some still question: the Wildcats would not have anybody guard Hill. The reasoning was that having an extra man trying to intercept—or at least deflect—the throw was preferable to hoping a defender could distract the passer and playing one-on-one at the other end. “We wanted to make them hit the ‘Hail Mary,’” Farmer says. It’s not like Pitino concocted this one on the spot. UK had had success defending plays like that all year. “We worked on that play many times during the season, and usually we would steal the ball, because we were playing five-on-four,” Pelphrey says. “I like those odds with two seconds left.”

Not that Laettner was worried either way. “Grant could have made that pass if someone had been guarding him,” he says. “It wouldn’t have been as precise, but it still would have been as good.”

The Catch

The Blue Devils respective responsibilities went this way: Hurley was supposed to head toward GHill, bringing a man with him. Thomas Hill and Lang were to fake short and go long. And Laettner was to come from the far corner to the foul line. It didn’t matter that there would be at least two players around the pass. Since Mashburn had fouled out, the main challenge to any jump ball thrown Laettner’s way had been removed. Though he stood 6-11, Laettner was never considered a human pogo stick. “We always joked with him that he wasn’t an athlete,” Lang says, laughing. “He was a pretty good athlete, but we didn’t like to say it.”

The Wildcats understood their situation. Pelphrey went 6-7. So did Feldhaus. Timberlake was 6-9. “Duke had two out-of-bounds plays,” Woods says. “[The long pass] was one of them. We never thought that with two guys on him that the ball would get there.” So, it was Laettner going for a long pass against Pelphrey (in the front) and Feldhaus (in the back). “When I was standing in the corner, getting ready for the play, I said to myself, ‘Go get the ball big and strong,’” Laettner says. “I knew I had time to make a move and dribble.”

So, Laettner went to get the ball, big and strong, just like he said. And he caught it, just like he said.

The Shot

Laettner didn’t know he was perfect to that point. Maybe Krzyzewski did, but he wasn’t letting on. “I had no idea I hadn’t missed a shot, and the coaches were smart enough not to tell me,” Laettner says. We in the stands certainly didn’t know. A great game? Yes. Infallibility? No. Nine-of-nine from the field. Ten-of-ten from the line. “He was 6-11 and an outstanding shooter who could shoot the three-pointer, put the ball on the floor, take a couple dribbles and pull up or take it all the way to the basket, too,” Farmer says. “He was a difficult matchup.”

Laettner was more than that. Way more. His résumé is one of the most impressive in college basketball history. He won two titles at Duke and scored more points in NCAA tourney games than anybody in NCAA history. He piled up 2,460 points, pulled down 1,149 boards and led Duke to 123 wins during his four years. “I don’t know that there’s a player who accomplished what Christian accomplished in the last 35-40 years of college basketball,” Grant Hill says. “I mean, he was unbelievable. Unbelievable talent, unbelievable ability, unbelievable confidence.”

One of the things that few people realized about Laettner was his toughness. Let’s face it; he was a tall, soft-spoken dude with great hair and a look that screamed “Wonder Bread!” But then-Purdue coach Gene Keady, hardly a softy himself, once told me, “He’s as mean as a snake,” after having coached Laettner on a summer touring team. When Laettner positioned himself for that last play, he certainly wasn’t thinking about messing up or worrying that he might let people down. In fact, in his sophomore year, Laettner hit the game-winning shot that beat UConn to win the East Region title at the Meadowlands. “People don’t realize how competitive he was,” Lang says. “He’d rip your head off. Anything he played he hated losing, even pickup games in the summer.”

So Laettner was confident, and once he’d caught the ball he knew he could get a clear shot. The last thing Pitino had told his team was not to foul anybody. Could there be a worse way to lose a regional title game? “The last thing we wanted to do was put Christian Laettner on the line,” Woods says.

Laettner came down with the ball, faked right, dribbled once to gather himself and turned to his left unmolested. Pelphrey actually moved away with his hands up, as if to let the referees know he had no intention of touching Laettner. Feldhaus raised his arms straight up but lowered them as Laettner shot, again not wanting to give anybody a chance to call a foul.

The fallaway jumper was perfect. Duke had its win, 104-103. And Laettner had further cemented his legacy.

“You always work on buzzer-beaters,” he says. “When you’re a kid in the driveway, you say ‘3-2-1’ and then shoot. At Duke, the last thing I did every day was practice jumpers from the top of the key with the clock going down. I did it alone first and then with a defender there.”

The Aftermath

Lang and Pelphrey are close friends. The former Kentucky star is now the successful head coach at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, where Lang lives when he isn’t coaching ball in Japan. They see each other three times a week, because Lang works out at USA, and the two men’s children play youth sports together. And yet…

“We never talk about that game,” Lang says today.

You can’t blame the Kentucky players for not joining in the celebration of the game. They know its place in history, but they still can’t get past the fact that they had redemption in their hands, only to have Laettner take it away. Farmer, now the Commissioner of Agriculture in Kentucky, admits that he still struggles with the memory. “We thought we had the game,” he says.

The Duke players, of course, relish the memories and the victory. Says Lang, “It was our destiny.”

The rest of us, especially those who were lucky enough to be there, still can’t quite believe what happened. The impossible had become magical. Something which seemed so big had been taken apart with precision and reassembled perfectly. Mere mortals are left to marvel at the results, while the gods reap the rewards.

Laettner sums up the postgame emotion beautifully. “It was the most exciting, absolutely chaotic 20 minutes of my life,” he says. “It was the greatest feeling of utmost joy and happiness.”

Slick Rick is reportedly after the coaching gig in New Jersey (and going about it through shady backdoor channels), but the Nets may be after two other top collegiate coaching candidates: “On the day that Louisville’s Rick Pitino denied a Daily News report that he would like to coach the team next season, two other prominent college coaches emerged as possible candidates to land the top job in New Jersey. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski is No. 1 on the Nets’ wish list, according to a report posted on The Record of Hackensack’s Web site last night. And Kentucky’s John Calipari, who coached the Nets during the late ’90s, is also on the team’s radar, sources told The News. Krzyzewski and Calipari are two of the top coaches in the college ranks and it makes sense that the Nets would be eyeing either one. Krzyzewski has led Duke to three national titles and is also the coach of the U.S. men’s national team, which makes him close to potential free agents LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer and Amar’e Stoudemire, who all play for Team USA. Meanwhile, Calipari is now coaching point guard John Wall at Kentucky.”

According to multiple reports, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino has admitted to the police that he had consensual sex with Karen Cunagin Sypher, not raping her as she claims, at a Louisville restaurant where he’d been drinking on Aug. 1, 2003. It is also being reported that he told police that he gave her $3,000 to have an abortion. Sypher has peaded not guilty after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to extort money from Pitino in exchange for her silence about the alleged crimes as well as lying to the FBI.

Later on this afternoon Pitino’s lawyer, Steve Spence, told ESPN that his client meant that he paid $3,000 for insurance, not abortion. “The way this has been reported in the media is not accurate,” Pence told The Associated Press. “The coach has not done anything illegal.” New reports state that Sypher told Pitino she was going to have an abortion but didn’t have any health insurance, so he gave her the $3,000. The Louisville Courier-Journal has made Pitino’s contract public, including its “Termination for Just Cause,” section (page 8, section 6) that includes a morality clause, which allows for him to be fired for acts of “moral depravity.” University of Louisville president James Ramsey and athletic director Tom Jurich have made it clear thus far that they stand by Pitino and his family. Pitino is expected to make a comment at 6:30 P.M.